


The Shades In Between

by nakymatonlapsi



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Kiss, M/M, Soulmates, very light allusions to alcoholism and depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 13:40:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1552433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nakymatonlapsi/pseuds/nakymatonlapsi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Grantaire's world, shades of black and white are all there is. Until he sees the boy in the door. </p><p>(Or: that one au where the world is black and white until you meet your soulmate)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shades In Between

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by this tumblr post:  
> http://apharthurkirklands.tumblr.com/post/83556716953/au-where-everything-is-black-and-white-until-you

Grantaire has always been an artist. He is fascinated by shapes, structures and textures and the soft curves and sharp edges of human nature. He has always had the urge to capture compositions and emotions, his paint brush constantly moving over his stark white canvases, shaping the black paint into something that holds meaning, into shades of grey and black and white contrasts that convey what he feels.  He is good at reproducing the  subtle changes of light and colour in his black and white world, catching the shades in between those two stark extremes. He is also very good at blurring all those contrasts together into one washed-out faded grey, the exact shade his world is made of when he’s drowning in colourless liquor and his own ever re-occurring dull thoughts. He walks through life forever torn between marvelling at the exquisite way the light is reflected on the water of the Seine on bright days and wanting to drown himself in it’s never-ending darkness on the bad ones. 

When he makes his way down to the musée d l’orangerie this morning, it’s a foggy day, the kind of day that makes the grey walls of his apartment complex fade into the sky when he steps outside his door and that uniforms all the people hasting to and from paces that pass him on the street in a dirty kind of white. It’s a white that he has tried to recreate on canvas multiple times but just can’t seem to get right. Here on the street it looks slightly different on every person but in his paintings, he can never quite get the hang of those details.  When he looks at his hands, they too seem to fade into the fog and Grantaire thinks that on days like these, it must be so easy to just give up on all your edges and fade away. To just cease existing and become a part of the thick damp fog than envelops the city and all those hoping, dreaming and hurting inside of it.

 

He stops at a small coffee shop on his way, the one where his friend Eponine works at, a scrawny person with pitch black hair and big bright grey eyes. They’ve been friends long enough for Eponine to know his order by heart and while they pack his usual pastry in a paper bag he pours milk into his coffee until it has reached the perfect shade of grey. He is handed the bag with a small smile and he smiles back, halfway out the door already. 

He eats on his way, and once inside the museum he slows his pace to walk through the first room, still mostly empty and the silence undisturbed by the daily tourists. Or maybe that’s the weather’s doing. 

When he reaches his favourite room, he sits down on the long white bench in the middle and soaks in the atmosphere around him. This is one of Grantaire’s favourite places  in the world, surrounded by les nymphéas, breathing. 

He loves these paintings, has looked at them a million times and still he never tires of studying every inane detail, every nuance. They ground him, take away some of the pressure that is constantly lurking in his stomach, some of the desire to dull his senses with all the mains available, some of the pressing urge to give in to his fantasies about fading away into foggy nothingness. 

Those paintings are all he has on some days to keep him alive, however much he despises the sentiment.

 

The room is starting to fill with people as the morning progresses and Grantaire spots the elderly couple he’s seen here a few times before next to a family of four. He ceases to marvel at the paintings and goes over to another of his favourite pastimes, people watching. His interest wanders, goes from this group of tourists to that young woman with a patterned blouse. He just watches, people and paintings alike, and wonders how they all fall in such a steady ease with the world around them, seemingly so effortlessly. When he contemplates that thought for a moment, he realises that he is actually quite at ease with the world right in this moment and the realisation makes him grin. 

 

His attention is abruptly draw to the entrance, where a trio of students has just shown up. He glances at the first two, a tall man with glasses and a slightly smaller man with tight dark curls. Then they part and Grantaire’s whole world stops. 

The third man, a boy really, is slender, long locks riveting down his shoulder. He has sharp, poignant features and a determined look in his eyes. He’s beautiful, but that’s not what is preoccupying Grantaire. Around him, the whole world seems to have exploded in a burst of light and brightness and the man is the center of it, radiating light and nuances, there’s suddenly so many nuances, and Grantaire realises the world has lost it’s greyness. It has gained something else instead, something that threatens to overwhelm him with it’s beauty and variety and sheer _vibrance_. He has names for all the nuances, colours, around him, tumbling from the back of his consciousness, like they’ve been there forever, only waiting for this revelation, _this revolution,_ to happen. And if he hasn’t believed in a single thing before, well, now, moved to tears by the radiant burst of colour around him, he believes in this man with the bright red jacket and golden hair, this creature, this god, still standing in the door of the room. It feels almost painful to pry his gaze away from him but Grantaire does, needs to see everything within the reach of his eyes, needs to see the paintings!

They’re there, and they’re a million times more beautiful than before. Where before was shade there is now colour and so much more nuance so much more depth, even though the colours are muted and Grantaire thinks that somehow, that is probably their most amazing feature. He swallows hard, aware of his shaking hands, aware of the wetness on his cheeks. When he raises his hand to dab it away, he catches sight of his paint stained fingers, red and green spots on olive skin. His thoughts fly to his own paintings and he wants to scream in frustration at the prospect of looking at them now, looking at what he painted before, looking at the colours he used when he didn’t know their difference but in shade. The idea is terrifying and enthralling at the same time. 

 

Then he remembers the glowing boy and as he turns, he realises the boy must have been staring at him because their eyes meet and Grantaire lets out a soft sound at the icy blue he’s gazing at. He thinks that he has just found his favourite colour. They both keep staring into each others eyes, too caught up in the other person to even breath and then the boy takes five sure steps through the room and comes to a halt in front of Grantaire. He looks wild, his eyes piercing and his cheeks reddened. 

 

_‘You’_ he says and he sounds astonished, and a little angry. 

_‘You’_ he says again. 

 

Grantaire keeps staring up at him from where he’s still seated. The figure in front of him suddenly reaches out and his long fingers touch lightly upon Grantaire’s jaw. He let’s out a ragged breath and clumsily get’s to his feet. The boy let’s his hand fall away but his gaze remains on Grantaire’s face. 

 

_‘You’_ he says a third time and this time it sounds sure, almost matter-of-factly. 

_‘Me.’_ answers Grantaire. 

 

For good measure he adds ‘ _sorry’_ , even if he doesn’t feel sorry at all. The  boy rolls his eyes at him, looking annoyed. 

_‘Shut up’_ he says. 

 

Grantaire is about to make a retort of some sort but suddenly, there’s a pair of firm lips pressed against his and a hand on his upper arm. He freezes for a moment, devoid of all thought, before his senses kick in and he tentatively wraps his arms around the slender body in front of him. He is warm and his kiss is persistent. 

Grantaire smiles against his lips, taking in all the colours around him blurring into one, bright, shining mess so unlike the dull grey that has been his companion for so long. His vision focuses on the face in front of him, the blue, icy blue, piercing, wonderful eyes and he thinks that as long as this particular colour is there to keep him anchored, he can make it. He closes his eyes and focuses on kissing his soulmate back.

**Author's Note:**

> if you care to see the paintings:  
> http://www.musee-orangerie.fr/en/article/water-lilies-virtual-visit


End file.
